but the thread is pretty old…and i am super new to buddypress, still figuring out how it works, and could use some pointers on how to make a site that functions very similar to tastykitchen.com. i’m guessing they hacked the heck out of buddypress, like the original poster of the above post mentioned? is there not now a way to do something similar to tasty kitchen with buddypress out-of-the-box or with some plugins?

i am not interested in setting my users up with blogs…i simply want the simple social aspects, profiles, forums, etc. something very simple for users…

i know that at some point recently (no idea when, haven’t read the details anywhere yet) WPMU became obsolete and the features integrated into the standard WP installation…so i’m wondering if this change and also the latest updates to WP and buddypress might affect this topic of buddypress for non-bloggers?

can someone please update me on how this situation is now, in july 2011, with the latest installations of WP and buddypress and relevant plugins?

a list of plugins that could be configured to have similar functionality to what is seen at tastykitchen.com would be wonderful! i’m hoping some of the things that would have to have been hacked before, maybe no longer need to be? maybe there are new plugins that cover these features?

the site that i am working on will be a directory of parent-owned at-home businesses…i am interested in users being able to have profiles with personal info about themselves, and socialize with each other through that…and then post their businesses (connected with their profile…similar to the recipes being connected to the profiles of the tastykitchen.com users) to a central directory which is fully browsable and searchable.

things i love at tastykitchen.com that i want to use similarly on my site:

* slideshow w/post pics and profile pics together (is this an existing or did they create this? anyone know?)
* featured member
* recipes button on bar w/categories list on hover…instead of a directory of recipes…i would like users to be able to add their business to a directory…so where tastykitchen.com would be listing recipes, i want to list the businesses of users
* spotlighted recipes in the sidebar (i want to spotlight user’s businesses)…
* popular recipes: i’d want “popular businesses”…i imagine that “popularity” is determined by how many views the recipe has had? and lists those with the most? is this part of buddypress or a hack?
* recent recipes: i would want this to be newly added businesses
* meet the member
* the community feature…i would want something similar, to be able to browse user profiles…featured users and popular users and newest members, just like at tastykitchen.com when you click on the “community” button on the menu bar.

All that can be done with current WP/BP versions. If you’re new to WP/BP, you’d have to:
– do some reading https://codex.buddypress.org/home/ and
– testing on an installation already set up at http://testbp.org/ or set up your own installation and
– diving into code yourself or hiring someone to do it.

great! thanks! ok so first you say that all that can be done with the current versions…then lastly you say that i need to dive into the code…so do you mean that the things that i mentioned are only available if i dive into the code? or are they possible without doing any coding?

i’m not a coder, and i cannot afford to hire a coder…but i have been able to fiddle a little with some very simiple code here and there…so if its simple enough, i may be able to figure it out if there are explicit instructions somewhere…

i will check out the buddypress doc you linked to but i’ve found that the wordpress docs are not always easy for me to understand…make my eyes glaze over, LOL! i much prefer the interpretations that people blog about or post on forums that explains things in simple terms that i understand. so i hope that document is user friendly in that sense. we’ll see.

thanks again! and please let me know if to do the things i listed above if i will have to get someone to help me with coding or if they are possible out-of-the-box or with a plugin? that wasn’t clear to me in your response. thank you!